Saturday, June 14, 2008

More than 80 forwards received a vote as one of the the top five defensive forwards in the NHL this season, which is roughly one-third of those who play on a team's top three lines:

Unlike some, I like the Selke. I think it's a great way to honour players who otherwise don't get a lot of credit for their contributions, or simply to highlight players like Henrik Zetterberg who bring far more to the table than can be measured in goals and assists.

After the season ended, I went through my methodology for picking the Selke before eventually settling on Patrick Sharp as a deserving winner.

I think that's a decent list, and ultimately, the PHWA put five of those top six among its top six: Datsyuk (1st), Madden (2nd), Zetterberg (3rd), Sharp (4th) and Pahlsson (6th).

A much better showing, overall, than last season, when Rod Brind'Amour won over Pahlsson for no explicable reason. (Two months after the voting, Pahlsson was a big reason the Ducks won the Stanley Cup.)

It'd take me hours to root through the statistics for all the vote getters and come up with a list of the worst choices, but a lot are plainly evident against my Selke candidate criteria: (a) a player should check the opposition's top line at even strength, (b) he should, in general, prevent goals when he's on the ice, and (c) he should play on the penalty kill, preferably the first unit.

To me, that's a defensive forward. At least, that would make a candidate to finish among the top five in the league, which is what we're picking.

(The last two you can debate given they missed about 25 games apiece. Madden and Moen would be next up.)

Some of the wild picks? Japers' Rink points out that Viktor Kozlov and his eight minutes of shorthanded ice time (over 81 games) received a first-place vote.

Brind'Amour finishes 24th, which I can live with. Ovechkin received four votes despite not playing hardly a wink on the penalty kill, and he was joined by several other non-defensive forwards like Dany Heatley, Mats Sundin, Nathan Horton, Mike Ribeiro, Joe Thornton, Doug Weight, Stephen Weiss, Nicklas Backstrom, Sergei Fedorov, Jiri Hudler, Derek Roy, etc.

Those players, and others, were considered to be among the top five defensive forwards in the NHL, and all were ahead of, or tied with, Jordan Staal, Torrey Mitchell and Rick Nash, who played key defensive roles.

Now, as I said, this year's nominees and vote getters are far better than they've been in the past, and I think that's partly attributable to the fact there is more information available on the defensive side of the game. There are still an awful lot of PHWA votes, however, being cast into the wind (or worse).

Heatley, Getzlaf, Kozlov, Ovechkin, Morrow, Ribeiro, etc., all make the list due to their plus-minus, even as the bogus stat hurts the likes of Mike Grier, Stu Barnes and Sami Pahlsson.

Why does any of this matter?

To me, the Selke voting's indicative of a lot of misinformation out there. Coaches, the good ones anyway, know what a great defensive forward is. There's a reason, after all, that they allocate every minute — even strength, man up or down — the way they do, and that helps separate the Bowmans from those on the unemployment line.

To me, the Selke voting's indicative of a lot of misinformation out there. Coaches, the good ones anyway, know what a great defensive forward is. There's a reason, after all, that they allocate every minute — even strength, man up or down — the way they do, and that helps separate the Bowmans from those on the unemployment line.

So wouldn't it make more sense simply to have the 30 head coaches do the voting, the way the GMs (for whatever reason) vote on the Vezina?

Draper's on the list twice, as someone else mentioned. And Fedorov a non-defensive forward? He's a previous Selke winner.

By my count, nine Red Wings on that list. For those keeping score at home, that means only four Wings forwards who played at least 41 games didn't get a vote: Holmstrom, Drake, Kopecky, and Downey. Wow.

I think the reason coaches (and GMs, to a lesser extent) shouldn't vote is because it's too hard for them to follow both conferences.

I'm just here to repeat TheTick. I wouldn't say Derek Roy is the best defensive forward in the league but I don't think it's ridiculous that he got a few votes tossed his way. He doesn't play the competition that Jochen Hecht and Jason Pominville do but I think he probably could and he's developing into a very good penalty killer. I would definitely not call him a non-defensive forward.

(That said, Hecht and Pominville should clearly be getting any Buffalo Selke votes.)

I dunno, I watched a lot of hockey this year and read a lot of blogs, but I'd be hard pressed to come up with a list of defensive forwards outside of the Wings division... And forget about the eastern conference, I almost never see those teams play.

It's interesting how the GM's and the writers see things differently. There's Brodeur with the Vezina voted by the GM's, and Nabokov with the first all star team as voted by the writers. According to Bob McKenzie who did an informal poll of GM's after the regular season, Henrik Zetterberg would have been the runaway winner of the Selke, not Datsyuk as voted by the writers.

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About Me

A sportswriter at The Globe and Mail, James covers the NHL and the game of hockey. He is a member of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association, a radio and TV analyst with TSN and was the NHL network manager at SB Nation from 2008 to 2010. A graduate of Thompson Rivers and Ryerson universities, James grew up in Kamloops, B.C. — one of Canada's great hockey cities — and was a season ticket holder in the Blazers' glory years.

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